BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. – The manhunt for the former Los Angeles police officer suspected of going on a killing spree converged Tuesday on a mountain cabin where authorities believe he barricaded himself inside, engaged in a shootout that killed a deputy and then never emerged as the home went up in flames.
Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton top website's list of adulterous cities
EDMONTON – The founder and CEO of AshleyMadison.com, a matchmaking site that caters to cheaters, says Ottawa is the most adulterous city in Canada.
Tibetan monk sets himself on fire in Nepal
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A Tibetan monk doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in Nepal's capital Wednesday in what is believed to be the latest self-immolation to protest Chinese rule in Tibet. Flyers overcome Jets 3-2 for just their second road win of NHL season
WINNIPEG – The Philadelphia Flyers shook off a loss in Toronto the night before to beat the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 Tuesday night and win their second road game of the current NHL season.
(Reuters) – Swimsuit model Kate Upton said on Tuesday her body shut down after she posed in a skimpy bikini in Antarc tica for Sports Illustrated magazine. Upton, wearing only a white bikini bottom and an unzipped white parka, was picked as the cover girl for the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, unveiled on Monday, for the second consecutive year. "It was freezing," Upton, 20, told NBC's morning TV show "Today" on Tuesday. "I'm from Florida, so it wasn't easy for me. "When I came back, I was losing my hearing and eyesight. … 
From sequin-drenched samba parades in Rio de Ja neiro to cascades of Mardi Gras beads on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, revelers gathered to dance until dawn at Fat Tuesday celebrations. The Roman Catholic period of Lent begins on Wednesday and Fat Tuesday marks the end of the carnival festivities that lead to the solemn season. 
Good news from Antarctica: The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking, new measurements reveal. 
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Cardinals around the world began informal contacts to discuss who should next lead the Church through a period of major crisis and the Vatican said it planned a big send-off for Pope Benedict before he becomes the first pontiff in centuries to resign. At a Tuesday news conference on how the pope plans to spend the next two weeks before he steps out of the limelight, the Vatican also disclosed that the 85-year-old Benedict has been wearing a pacemaker since before he was elected pope in 2005. … 
GAO, Mali (AP) -- Soldiers from Niger and Mali patrolled downtown Gao on foot Tuesday, combing the sand footpaths through empty market stalls to prevent radical Islamic fighters from returning to this embattled city in northern Mali. 
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Mark Carney, who will soon become the head of the central bank in soccer-mad B ritain, revealed on Tuesday he is a supporter of English Premier League football club Everton. Carney, currently governor of the Bank of Canada, disclosed his allegiance to the club – known as the Toffees – when asked at a Canadian parliamentary committee whether he followed traditional heavyweights Manchester United or Chelsea. Everton, based in the northwest city of Liverpool, is sixth in the Premier League. The team last won the title in 1987. "I am an Everton supporter … … 
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Tuesday called North Korea's latest nuclear test a "highly provocative act" that threatens U.S. security and international peace. 
PARIS (AP) -- Libya's government is struggling to control its borders and retrieve the arms and explosives that were looted after longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi's downfall, according to the conclusions of an international meeting on Libyan security on Tuesday. 
BEIRUT (AP) -- Activists say rebels have stormed a base that is in charge of protecting the international airport in the contested northern city of Aleppo, leaving dozens dead. 
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- One of Africa's brightest hopes to be the next pope, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, says the time is right for a pontiff from the developing world. 
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- For months, construction crews have been renovating a four-story building attached to a monastery on the northern edge of the Vatican gardens where nuns would live for a few years at a time in cloister. 
TUNIS (Reuters) – The leader of Tunisia's main Islamist Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, said on Tuesday he ex pected Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali to form a coalition government this week that would include politicians as well as technocrats. "I expect that agreement will be reached and I expect Jebali will remain the prime minister of a coalition government," he told Reuters in an interview. … 
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Incoming Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who currently heads the Bank of Canada, said on Tuesday Canada was in a very different financial position from Britain. "Here in Canada we are in a very different position than that in the United Kingdom. We don't have large public and private indebtedness, we are not at zero lower bound (interest rates), we don't have the problems in the financial sector that exist over there," he told Canada's House of Commons finance committee. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson) 
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- Liberia's information minister says the 11 bodies of the Guineans killed after a military plane crashed in Liberia will be flown back to their homeland. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's inflation rate unexpectedly held steady for the fourth consecutive month in January but there was little respite for consumers as it remained at its highest level since May, official data showed on Tuesday. Annual consumer price inflation stayed at 2.7 percent last month, the Office for National Statistics said, slightly below the 2.8 percent median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. It is the first time inflation has remained unchanged for four months since records began in 1996, the ONS said. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's inflation rate unexpectedly held steady for the fourth consecutive month in January but there was little respite for consumers as it remained at its highest level since May, official data showed on Tuesday. Annual consumer price inflation stayed at 2.7 percent last month, the Office for National Statistics said, slightly below the 2.8 percent median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. It is the first time inflation has remained unchanged for four months since records began in 1996, the ONS said. … 
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Tuesday that its widely condemned nuclear test was merely its "first response" to what it called U.S. threats, warning that it will continue with unspecified "second and third measures of greater intensity" if t he United States maintains its hostility. 
ZURICH (AP) -- Soccer is falling under a cloud of suspicion as never before, sullied by a multibillion-dollar web of match-fixing that is corrupting increasingly larger parts of the world's most popular sport. 
BERLIN (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI's brother says he spoke with the pontiff after his surprise announcement that he was stepping down and that the 85-year-old is not planning on moving back to his German homeland after his retirement. 
ROME (AP) -- Two years ago, a curious case landed on the desk of Italian prosecutor Roberto Di Martino in the town of Cremona. 
LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) – Group of Seven nations reiterated their commitment on Tuesday to market-determined exchange rates and said fiscal and monetary policies must not be dire cted at devaluing currencies. The intervention follows a round of rhetoric about currency wars, prompted largely by Japan's new government pressing for an aggressive expansion of monetary policy, which has seen the yen weaken sharply as a result. … 
KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian court on Tuesday delayed the tax eva sion and embezzlement trial of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko after she refused to attend the hearings, citing poor health. Tymoshenko, the main political opponent of President Viktor Yanukovich, was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2011 in a separate abuse-of-office trial but has been treated in a state-run hospital since last May for back trouble. Her case has soured Ukraine's diplomatic ties, with many in the West viewing it as an example of selective justice and urging her release. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – Swiss bank UBS has been fined 9.45 million pounds ($14.80 million) by Britain's financial regulator for exposing customers to unacceptable risk when it so ld a fund. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said on Tuesday the Swiss-based bank, which was last year fined $1.5 billion for rigging benchmark interest rates, also failed to deal properly with customer complaints about the sale of the AIG Enhanced Variable Rate Fund. (Reporting by Kirstin Ridley, Editing by Sinead Cruise) 
LONDON (Reuters) – Barclays is axing at least 3,700 jobs and pruning its investment bank as its new boss put his stamp on the troubled bank by aiming to cut 1.7 billion pounds in annual costs and raise standards after a series of scandals. The plans form part of an overhaul which Chief Executive Antony Jenkins hopes will convince a sceptical public that he can change a bank which has been dogged by controversy, including a $450 million (289 million pounds) fine for rigging Libor interbank lending rates. … 
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday raised prospects that Tehran may allow inspectors from the U.N. nuclear agency to visit a military site where the country is suspected of conducting nuclear-related experiments. 
MANILA (Reuters) – With attention turning from Europe to the "new" world, worshippers in the Philippines prayed quietly and took to social media on Tuesday in the hope their cardinal might be chosen as the next leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Many Catholics in the Philippines, the largest Christian community in Asia, were shocked by Pope Benedict's resignation, including their charismatic leader, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. "Pope Benedict XVI's renunciation of the ministry as Bishop of Rome on February 11, 2013 came as a surprise," Tagle said in a statement. … 
North Korea conducted its third nuclear test Tuesday, the latest step in a years-long effort to develop nuclear weapons. Experts believe the country remains far from having a nuclear-armed missile that could threaten the United States, which would require an accurate long-range rocket and a nuclear warhead that could b e mounted on it. Here is a look at North Korea's progress so far: 
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – When President Jacob Zuma said last year South Africa would spend $95 billion on roads, ports and railways before 2015, domestic construction firms such as Sanyati should have been cele brating. But the company's bosses were too busy trying to stave off bankruptcy because they said the government had failed to pay $6 million for an earlier contract to build and repair roads. The government says Sanyati, which folded with the loss of 2,500 jobs, was also to blame for entering illegal building contracts with a provincial administration. … 
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels are launching a major operation to take control of the strategic eastern city of Deir al-Zor after pushing out government forces from oil-producing areas around it, a rebel commander said. If they seize the city, the rebels will control a whole province for the first time in the 22-month-old Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Ibrahim Abu Baker, leader of the powerful Al-Qadisiyah Brigade, said his rebel force, along with Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra and Arab fighters, had surrounded Deir al-Zor on four sides in the build-up to the operation. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – G4S said its loss on the London Olympic security contract would stretch to 70 million pounds after finally agreeing a settlement with Games organisers. The world's biggest security firm's reputation was badly tarnished when it admitted just weeks before last year's Olympics it could not provide 10,400 guards for the Games, forcing British troops to fill in and embarrassing government, a key client. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – A 3 billion pounds five-year investment plan by London's Heathrow airport could see passengers facing a rise in ticket prices. Heathrow Ltd, the British airport operator formerly known as BA A, on Tuesday said it wants Britain's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to allow it to increase charges for airlines to use the airport between 2014 and 2019. If approved, the charges would increase from the equivalent of 19.33 pounds per passenger for 2012/13 to an upper limit of 27.30 pounds in 2018/19. … 
DUBAI (Re uters) – The Yemen-based offshoot of Al Qaeda urged Muslims to sacrifice themselves and their money to help fend off what it called the "Crusader war" in Mali, according to a statement posted online on Tuesday. France intervened in Mali last month to check a push south towards the capital Bamako by Islamist forces who seized control of the north of the country in the confusion that followed a military coup in March 2012. Their surprise advance pushed Mali to the forefront of U.S. … 
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The closest of confidants, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger watched from the front row as Pope John Paul II, once a strapping athlete, steadily deteriorated in his later years. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Barclays is to axe at least 3,700 jobs and prune parts of its investment bank as its new boss put his stamp on the British bank with a plan to c ut 1.7 billion pounds ($2.7 billion) in annual costs and improve standards. Barclays Chief Executive Antony Jenkins said on Tuesday the job cuts will include 1,800 in corporate and investment banking and 1,900 in its European retail and business banking. Jenkins' unveiled his strategic plan alongside annual results. Barclays reported a 2012 pretax profit of 246 million pounds, almost wiping out a 5. …